


Rapture's Black Pearl

by Arletiz



Category: BioShock
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-21 21:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13152159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arletiz/pseuds/Arletiz
Summary: From a childhood in the segregated shanty towns outside St. Louis, performing in chorus lines in Harlem minstrel revues to entertaining in Rapture's most prestigious cabarets in it's heyday. Despite her trials & tribulations, the little known black girl from the Missouri hoovervilles, singer/dancer/actress Grace Holloway proved to be Rapture's most sensational figures.





	1. All Hell Breaks Loose

 

 

_**February 1, 1959** _

A young journalist with the Rapture Tribune sat in the parlor of Mrs. Holloway's small apartment. Her modest home, with a dusty piano, phonograph, scattered music sheets, and posters from past concerts resembled those cheap rooms in Upper Harlem she used to rent during her days as a young chorus girl. There Mrs. Holloway reminisced to the young man about her past few months in her adopted home of Rapture. The journalist had last seen her a month earlier, as citizens were being evacuated by the hundreds to the city's most distant recesses upon the outbreak of the recent Civil War. Of all the people, he believed Grace and her current husband, shady owner of Dionysus Park, Stanley Poole were among those whom fled to the nether regions of the city. Although non-stop violence continued across the city, it wasn't as atrocious as it had been back that December night. The sounds of makeshift bombs, gunshots and shattering glass rumbled through the streets daily, typically getting worse during the night.

"I didn't leave." She began, "the danger threatening the city was great, but...I felt it was my duty to remain." During the early days of the Civil War, she found herself aiding local clinics around Pauper's Drop, where she sang several times weekly to the wounded, administered medicine, cleaned & wrapped wounds and read letters from family whom had escaped. There was still several music sheets on the coffee table from the program she performed at the nearby clinic. Her guest listened quietly, scribbling a few notes in his notebook and sipping the rationed coffee in the few pieces of fine china she managed to save from her more 'well to do' days. 

"I've been asked to do a few engagements within a few weeks in Siren Alley at the old Mermaid Lounge. Possibly more afterwards, if this economic crisis lets up soon. At the moment, there's a floor show being organized at the Flower Emporium." The journalist prodded her about the cane and limp she acquired as well, but Grace refused to go into any detail. Her recount of recent events coming to an end, the man got up, closed his notebook and thanked Grace for her hospitality. "It's good to have a refreshing topic to write about, all of the columns in the papers today are most gloomy." He pulled coat tighter around him (he never bothered to remove it in the freezing little apartment) and rushed off to his typewriter.

Closing the door after the departing journalist, Grace took a seat at her bedroom vanity table. She was nearly 3, 350 miles from the St. Louis slums where she began. How was her family faring? She had been unable to write home since the outbreak of the conflict. As she daydreamed in to the mirror, the front door slammed shut. Stanley had returned home and threw himself onto the sofa. "Coffee please honey." Grace made her way towards the kitchenette and poured the last of the coffee for her husband. He gulped it down quickly before retiring for bed. She no longer bothered to ask where he had been. She knew how he was when they met, eyes roaming at every woman he came across. She quietly sought comfort elsewhere herself a few times. Now since the Park had become flooded during the conflict, he had been rather different, drinking and staying out more than usual. Grace wouldn't have minded if he left before, but now she was terrified to home alone with all that was going on. 

The radio, which had been broadcasting news bulletins all day, was now playing soft musical numbers. It was to give the populace to something to listen to besides the usual gunfire out in the streets. ' _The Thrill is Gone_ ' (from George White's Scandals of 1931) filled the house with a somewhat relaxing mood. Grace turned down the radio a bit to let Stanley sleep, changed into her bed gown and sat at the vanity, slowly rubbing the last bits of face cream onto her face. At the bottom her of her make up case concealed a photograph of James. Oh how she missed him, where ever he was. As Stanley stirred in bed, she quickly returned to preparing herself for bed. It was getting later, and she could hear the residents within the building quieting down for the night. 

From the bed, Stanley could tell his wife was in another of her moods again, he felt terrible already, now she had to do this to him. He had been planning to leave soon for a short while now. Perhaps he could get Grace out with him, she didn't deserve to end her life here as this city ripped itself apart. He would take her back to Harlem or maybe St. Louis, much safer there than here despite the reasons she ran away from there those many years ago. He had to get out soon he didn't care where he would go, Lamb or someone would soon find out what he did. Grace still sitting at the vanity, looked through her scrapbook she kept in a locked drawer. The book creaked and dust flew as she opened it, old programs and photos browned with age were pressed between the pages. The first photo she came across was of a young negro girl, in a poorly fitting sack dress outside a tenement building in somewhere in St. Louis, somewhere near the train tracks as the young girls dress in the photo were stained with soot. 

Grace hardly recognized herself in the photo as it had been so many years ago. She thought back to that warm summer day, playing out in the backstreets with the neighborhood kids while her mother was several streets down working in the factories. Factory work was better than scrubbing floors for the whites. She could hardly believe that the young shy girl in the old photograph would make it so far from shuffling her way through the dark Missouri streets to her factory job to shuffling across the stage in the chorus lines in the numerous Harlem nightclubs to gracefully singing between the tables in the clubs and cafes along Rapture's High Street.

From her last few letters from home, she was hearing about a strange Civil Rights Movement slowly growing across the country, if it was what she thought it was, Grace was glad her native country was changing in new, better direction. Although she hadn't recalled to many discriminating incidents since she arrived in Rapture over 13 years ago.  She remembered her arrival in the city, that freezing winter huddled in a ship on the Northern Atlantic..what could've been going through her young head as she descended into the bathysphere to her new life in the mysterious city on the ocean floor.


	2. St. Louis Blues

Possibly the eldest black resident in Rapture, and the certainly one of the most popular, like everyone in the city had roots far away from the North Atlantic seabed. Born several decades ago in the maternity ward of the St. Louis central colored hospital. Much of Grace Holloway's childhood was spent roaming the city from one small tenement to the next, as her mother worked all day from factory work to scrubbing floors, often her mother brought her along to make a little change herself.

  
The young girl enjoyed discovering the different sections of the city they moved to, however it put a strain on her, as she frequently had to resort to making new friends and starting at a new schoolhouse, although there were few colored schools. She often chose to remain to quiet and to herself, unlike her rather outgoing younger sisters, Cora & Ada, who went out with playing in the streets during all hours of the day while their brooding older sister quietly swept the house clean and buried herself into the few books she collected underneath her bed.    
  
Grace dreamed of travelling to some mysterious far off land, becoming a big celebrity all dressed up in pearls and feathers like Lucille Bogan and Ma Rainey who frequently performed in vaudeville shows across the city's colored theaters and tent shows. She heard the records her mother put on whenever she returned home from work, Clara Smith's  _ Strugglin Woman's Blues  _ usually rang through the small apartment as her mother threw together a quick meal before slipping into a deep sleep upon the sofa. Grace would quietly find a blanket and cover her mother before returning to the room she shared with her sisters. As the eldest, she was told there wasn’t enough time to dream, Grace needed to find a job to help support the family. She was already struggling in school, how could she handle a job? She was terrified of people, but it was either that or she was to be out on the streets, no matter if she was 13 or not. 

She wished should could be able to play and be carefree like her sisters. Occasionally her father, a tall strange slender man often claiming to be of Native heritage would arrive from the deep South. He was often drunken and rowdy, “You see Gracie honey” her mother would remind her frequently “It’s either scrubbing these floors to feed your sisters or strolling through town a drunken mess and embarrass your family.” Grace often hummed to Clara Smith songs in her head to get through the boring repetitive work just to make a few dollars, she imagined a banjo or piano was playing somewhere in the distance.    
  
During the family's more difficult years (which was frequent), the girls frequently saw themselves crammed into a backroom at their grandparents apartment on the other side of town. Their grandfather hardly said much, usually resting near the radio listening to the latest game. Their grandmother was different, a religious disciplinarian who frequently reprimanded them. Grace felt she got it worse, forced to clean up whenever her grandmother didn’t feel compelled to do it herself. Not following the rules was a straight shot to hell according to her grandmother. Somehow, after an agonizing few weeks they were at least able to get out of singing in the church choir, much to their grandmothers disappointment. Although Grace loved to sing when she was alone she wasn't fond of singing the religious hymns to the uppity congregation of her grandparents church. 

However, as much as she disliked her grandmother, she found herself mesmerized by the lovely wailing voice she sang  _ Nearer my God to Thee  _ and other spirituals in. Her mother also had a lovely voice, she heard the little blues her mother would sing around the house as she was cleaning up, washing or cooking. She would turn to Grace sometimes, “I know you have a lovely voice yourself Gracie. I wish you’d open up and sing for me sometimes.” Grace had heard it from her mother, friends and teachers that she a nice singing voice, but hardly believed it herself.

Whenever she got home from school, she pulled the gramophone into her room and would play every Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter records she owned until she knew the songs by heart. Those old records were the only thing she looked forward to whenever she got home, besides her books. Grace did often neglect her schoolwork, and frequently had her books and records taken from her.    
  
The arrival of the Depression made things for the family even worse, quickly her mother had a harder time finding steady work and since they no longer could afford to live on their own, the family quickly packed their belongings and returned to be with their grandparents. It was better than the shacks many families were forced to inhabit, especially in East St. Louis. However tensions often rose at home, and young Grace with the little money she had was frequently turned out into the streets. There she spent time with many of her friends whom preferred to spend their time out in the streets than in school. 

She quickly found herself immersed in world which she soon realized she didn’t want to be apart of. In the backstreet gin houses, dirty blues wailed throughout the building as cigarette and reefer smoke swirled around the room, sticking to the clothes of the drunken bodies dancing and rubbing up against each other, often disappearing into small side rooms for further ‘excitement’. Although fun at first, Grace wasn’t sure she really fit in to this scene, but the occasional singer wailing in the corner dressed up in finery and being thrown dollar bills excited her. Was that something she could see herself doing?

Appalled by the idea of a lifetime spent in her hometown, Grace began to look for a way to escape. Upon finishing school with the Depression over and WWII in full effect, factory jobs became available across the city. She found herself making money she would have never made scrubbing floors. Several times she had enough, to pack up and leave, however she gave most it to her struggling family. She dreamed of being on the stage, in lovely gowns and jewelry like the pretty actresses she saw on the movie screens.


	3. On the Road

_**1945-1946** _

Frequently troupes of black singers, dancers & comedians traveled from town to town gathering audiences within the theaters, cinemas and tent shows on the outskirts of the city. The timid girl soon found herself answering an ad to audition as a replacement for a chorus girl in a local vaudeville show. Arriving in the cold alley where several posters for the _Dixie Steppers_ were poorly pasted onto the walls, Grace found out she really didn't need to do much. The director took one look at the skinny black girl and pushed her through the backstage door.

Barely 20 year old Grace now found herself a chorus girl, she smiled to herself as Arabella Smith, the show's leading entertainer showed her to her corner in the busy dressing room. The other girls half dressed, applying makeup onto their faces shot filthy looks to the shabbily dressed girl who had come to replace one of their friends. "If you need anything honey, my door is always open." said Arabella as she disappeared through the door into her own personal room at the end of the dressing room.

  
After a few minutes of sitting quietly in the corner, Grace got up and quietly knocked on Arabella's door before entering. It wasn't anything like the rather bare dressing where the other girls were huddled. Beautiful silk and satin gowns covered with decorative beads filled the racks that lined the filthy walls on three sides. Rugs covered the old creaking wooden floors, an old table mirror sat in the corner filled with numerous glass perfume bottles and jars. Arabella watched as Grace looked in awe, “Cardboard under the rugs keeps the rats out. I’ve spent a good portion of my life in dumps like this and honey I’ve learned to provide for my comfort.”  The large woman reclined on back on her chair, barely covering her naked body in a black robe. “This your first time out honey, where are you from girl?”

The singer studied the shy young girl, very much unlike the other rowdy chorus girls that she had to put up with everyday. “Well..I’m from here. I’ve never really been anywhere before.” Arabella handed Grace a short short multi colored dress and stockings, “White folks love to see us singin’ and dancin’, but they want to see us sportin’ in fine clothes too. Put these on and sit at that mirror”

Grace quickly changed in front of the woman and sat at the dressing table. The woman moved closer, holding up a brush and compact. “Even a pretty girl like yourself could learn to use a bit of this. You ever wore makeup before?” The woman started applying the brownish powders to Grace’s face, “No ma’am never, my mother never used it really either.” Grace tried to hold her breath as the brush sweeping quickly across her face. “Paint is just another part of our profession. You’ll be breaking hearts for sure, girl.”

Many months on the road with the revue throughout the South, taught her the ways of the world. She finally arrived in Harlem, after being bullied by the other chorus girls for being a another dusty country girl from Missouri, scheming managers and the temptation of drugs and alcohol. She found it's busy streets exciting, bands led by Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Fletcher Henderson blasting Jazz and Swing from the Cotton Club and Savoy Ballroom. It was a world different from the Blues that rang through her hometown. Blacks, tired of financial and moral woes from the South, struck North to seek their fortunes in Harlem. Not only were their ex-sharecroppers from the South filling the cheap tenements daily, but strange talking Caribbean as well. 

At every colored drug store, besides a few gambling men and the numbers racket guy..were a few shelves stocked full of hair straightening jars & skin bleaching creams ('Makes Skin so light, you wouldn't know she was colored!'). Although they were expensive and hard to come by in the South, they were plentiful along 7th Avenue. Many the black men and women Grace passed by had terribly pale faces and permed hair. A good majority of the chorus girls from other shows certainly were, apparently several clubs made it a requirement to bleach your skin. "How strange!" Grace mentioned to Hattie, one of her few friends on the chorus lines, "Remember back in Tennessee, those directors made us black up for our shows." The girls had been running errands all day for Miss Arabella, for a bit of extra change. Hattie shifted the parcels in their arms, "Oh Girl, I used to see that all the time back home in Ohio. I think it's different down South. My cousin played in some show once that went to California, and those girls got sick from that bleachin' stuff they had to put on."

The girls turned the corner to their boarding house. Most of the girls grouped together and rented the cheap rooms near 7th Avenue. The little two room flat had several pallets on the floor, all the girls were knocked out after a bit of heavy drinking after the show. Stage costumes hanging on hooks on the wall or drying at the windows, street clothes and shoes folded and lining the walls. The girls made their way to Arabella's room, which she kept to herself (and her occasional lover). She was lying in bed puffing tobacco pipe, one of the chorus girls laying in bed beside her flipping through a magazine with her deep red varnished nails. "Chile just leave the stuff on that chair." Grace, catching herself from gawking at the sight of Arabella's large naked breasts lying over her stomach, quickly placed the parcels onto the chair beside the bed. 

Arabella grabbed Grace's wrist before she could turn and head for the door, "Don't act so surprised honey. You welcome to join us an try it sometime, might like it!" Arabella threw herself back in bed while her young girlfriend smirked from behind her magazine. Realizing Hattie had already left, Grace turned on her heels and left, shutting the door behind her. "Ha! Can't believe you ain't seen big 'Bella's naked ass already. Well get used to it, 'tho I'm surprised..she usually not like this when we get to Harlem. Landladies up here so nosy." Grace wasn't completely shocked by that days events. Since she got on the road, after every show the cast left for the nearest bar or gin house to throw dice, drink or just head straight for the boarding house for another kind of fun. Grace typically followed Hattie, who went straight to bed after a drink or two. Sometimes, she'd hang around Arabella, who drunkenly sang around the local gin houses, _Mean Ol' Bed Bug Blues_. Grace would find her body uncontrollably swaying to the music as the banjo player struck the chords. Although the other girls rolled their eyes, preferring the upbeat Swing and Boogie to the slow moving Blues, Grace couldn’t help but love the music she grew up listening to along the Mississippi river.

Hattie was the same. Grace was glad she made at least one friend within the chorus, many of the girls started turning on each other after swaying a few times onstage and making a few dollars. Sometimes, the leading girls would steal her makeup or burst into laughter whenever she missed a step, Grace would wish she would have remained home in Missouri. Hattie quickly to remind her of the idea of being a maid, housewife or factory worker for the rest of her life to keep her going. Dancing nightly in the Harlem floor shows and theaters for several months, going on the road during the summer and drinking a little gin to keep herself awake caused a bit of strain on the girl. Realizing how hard she was working, Arabella gave Grace her own little spot in the show a few times, singing  _Daddy, won't you please come Home?_. Often terrified when the spotlight moved onto her, she always felt good stepping offstage after her number, the audience hollering in approval. A couple of months quickly turned into year, Grace realizing she had saved up quite a bit of money and sent some of it home to her mother.

Before she could plan a trip home to St. Louis for a visit, she learned a new show was being organized that caught her interest. Andrew Tribble, a popular former female impersonator whom Grace recalled seeing dancing around the clubs in Tennessee. Mr. Tribble had organized the  _Roaming Revue_  to play across Canada, Greenland and Iceland for the few remaining Allied soldiers stationed there. The idea of discovering new places had always been in her mind and now the opportunity had arisen. Several of the girls were uninterested in leaving Harlem, and without hesitation Grace took one of their places. Although the show was smaller than planned, seven girls made their way to Montreal and Nuuk (there wasn't anything of interest in Greenland..besides the Northern Lights) for several successful weeks before moving on to Reykjavik for another month’s engagement. 

Playing in the strange Icelandic city wasn’t much excitement for the majority of the girls “Honey as soon as this is over, I’m heading back to Harlem”, despite the audiences being extremely enthusiastic to hearing the music and watching the girls shuffle their feet. Grace on the other hand, was excited just to be anywhere outside of St. Louis and even more thrilled by outside of America and it’s primitive Jim Crow laws. There was no such thing as a colored restroom or hotel in Iceland. Perhaps because there was hardly any blacks there to begin with. She of course couldn’t see herself there for the rest of her life, but it was a start.

During the day, she pulled on her fur coat and roamed the streets and stared into the shop windows, friendly local men took her to corner bars and cafes introducing her to local beers and delicacies. She couldn’t imagine herself fraternizing among the locals and the police not harassing her to move along. In fact the local Icelandic police kindly gave her directions around in their strange language. Eventually she picked up a few phrases herself, "Halló, ég er Grace. Hægt er að sýna mér aftur á hótelið?" There were several other American groups playing in the city, mostly all white. They weren’t to keen on the visiting Negroes running around without supervision in the little cold country. Grace enjoyed herself there, wasn’t going to be harassed by the other entertainers and quietly told herself that she wasn’t going back to America anyhow. One of the numbers,  _The Roaming Blues_ fit her situation perfectly.

That private idea soon must have been heard, as one night during their show, as the girls shuffled to the sound of the piano, "I've got to get myself together, I'm tired of this weather.." Grace noticed a strange dark-haired man beside the stage speaking to Mr. Tribble. "I came to this town one year ago, all up and down the ground full of snow. My man has quit me, that's why I want to goooo...." The man whispered something into his ear, and the two walked off towards the dressing rooms. Returning after their number, standing beside their manager in the middle of the room was mysterious Russian-American businessman, Andrew Ryan. Grace recalled seeing his name on the newspapers they used to fill their shoes during the winter back in Missouri.

"Mr. Ryan here has a new restaurant, Le Temps Perdu..that right Mr. Ryan? Anyways it's opening soon, within a few weeks and he's asked us to be among the first acts there. He's gonna buy whole new costumes for the band and you girls. We'll arrive in Rapture after these last few engagements!" Rapture? What's Rapture? Grace wasn't sure what she thought about the mysterious business man. Wrapped in fur coats, the groups made their way towards the Reykjavik shipyard. Lucille, one of the girls came up beside Grace, "Where and what the hell is Rapture?" Before she could answer, Claude (one of the musicians) puffing his cigars replied, "I don’t know where that is but we 'bout to be paid very well." Grace pulled her coat around her and grabbed on to the rail of the SS Ericsson as she ascended onto the ship. Apparently, it was going to be another month before the Rapture engagement, so Mr. Tribble (with Mr. Ryan's assistance) arranged for the group to appear in the United Kingdom. A week each in Glasgow, Blackpool, London & Paris..before being flown on a seaplane to Rapture.

Sitting in her warm cabin, her suit lying beside her on the bed, Grace listened to the other girls running around in the rooms beside her, listing everything they would buy back in Harlem with the money they were gonna earn. Grace pondered on the idea of what she was gonna do once the show was over. Europe had just been ripped apart by the war and was still recovering (Mr. Tribble was lucky to get the few engagements). Since she had no plans to return to New York, where would she go? Perhaps she could talk to this strange Mr. Ryan..maybe there will be more work at this place... Rapture.


	4. Arriving in Rapture

**_November 5th 1946_ **

The small private ship made its way through the freezing North Atlantic waters, between small pieces of ice. Grace was eating quietly in the main dining hall gazing out the large glass windows into the dark Atlantic, when a tall imposing figure sat down at her table.  Grace had become acquainted with Mr. Charles Milton Porter during her London engagement.

A majority of the city had been boneyard, so the revue played in the theaters on the outskirts. Mr. Porter always had a box seat beside the stage, watching with his serious face as the band wailed loudly and the girls danced across the stage to the jazz. Grace ran into him one foggy morning as she was sightseeing in the less damaged parts of the city. He frequently made trips from his Buckinghamshire office to his wife’s grave in London, who perished during the Blitz.

Grace could tell he was terribly troubled and invited him up to the show. Porter enjoyed the show,  it reminded him of home. It had been eight long years, he had been assisting the Allies in London, and seven of those he spent mourning his beloved Pearl. “Porter, what you need is a long trip, it's so gloomy here.” Grace often tried to cheer up the dismal man...to little effect. However a night at the theatre usually cleared things up, if only for a while.

The following week, as the revue awed war-weary Parisian audiences at the Casino Montparnasse, Grace was surprised to see Porter sitting quietly at one of the tables beside the stage. As she tried to join him during the intermission for a quick chat, she noticed a man had joined him and the two were deep in conversation. She soon realized it was that strange Mr. Ryan.

At the end of the week, as the revue departed for Rapture, Grace decided to join Porter on the train for Cherbourg, where other guests of Ryan were boarding for this unknown destination. “Have you been to this Rapture before, Porter?” Porter peered at her from behind his menu, “Well, Mr. Ryan seems to want to keep it a bit of a mystery. However I’m wondering what he could want with a mathematician and a Harlem chorus girl.” Grace, finishing her steak, pulled her large fur coat around her and adjusted the little hat on her head. “Well where ever this place is, I hope it’s not as cold as Iceland.” She flashed him a smile and winked her brown eyes before departing for her cabin.

On that chilly November night, the Atlantic was terribly choppy. Passengers and their luggage were being lowered into lifeboats heading towards the odd lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. Attendants quickly shuffled Rapture’s gawking new residents through the elegantly built structure towards the next available bathysphere. A clearly frightened woman raised her voice.

“Hopefully you don’t expect all of us to fit inside that little thing!” The attendants threw her bags into the bathysphere and tried to guide her inside, “Oh! But I’m not used to such treatment. I’ve already had the worst time hiding from those dreadful Germans in North Africa..all that sand!” That last comment quickly got the woman in an argument with a nearby German passenger. Sitting beside Porter, half asleep in her coat, Grace watched out the little window as they descended into the ocean.

Several minutes of staring at murky water, her brown eyes grew at the sight of what looked like the entire island of Manhattan submerged at the bottom of the ocean. Huge skyscrapers, office buildings and hotels all lit up while teams of fish fluttered through the city like birds would on the surface.

Grace reunited with the revue at the welcome center, Porter bade her farewell, catching the next train for Rapture Central Computing. Lucille ran over to Grace, “Girl where have you been? Look at this place! Claude come get the girls damn bags!” Grace and Lucille walked on,  arms linked, as the poor clarinetist, Claude struggled behind them with their luggage towards the train heading for Olympus Heights. After settling in their shared rooms at Mercury Suites, dressed in short black & white dresses, matching top hats, canes & each girl carrying a cane, the girls danced onto the floor between the tables as the band blared from beside the bar. Posters scattered across High Street and and a large banner outside the restaurant advertised:

 

_Le Temps Perdu Restaurant presents:  A. Tribble’s_

 

**_Rapturous Blackbirds Revue_ **

 

_Transatlantic Vaudeville floor-show direct from Harlem_

_\- Produced by Mr. Sander Cohen -_

_November 5th, 1946_

 

The girls shuffled their feet across the polished floor, singing from the top of their lungs as the trumpet blared, “ _Sweetheart, there’s heaven in your eyes, you’re an angel in disguise from up above! Sweetheart it’s you I idolize…_ ” French waiters weaved their way through the girls to serve the aristocratic audience that filled the restaurant. Outside, those unable to get inside watched from the door. Lucille nudged Grace and pointed her elbow in a particular direction, it was Porter sitting towards the back with a small group (‘ _probably his colleagues from that computing place_ ’ Grace thought)

She really didn’t have to think about Porter, her feet were killing her from the complicated steps they had to learn from Mr. Sander Cohen. He was the meanest bastard she’d ever met. Grace couldn’t stand these overly _artistic_ types. She also couldn’t stand his damn mustache, always sitting crookedly on his face. Finally an intermission came, the band struck up, _The Lady is a Tramp_ as the girls quickly made their way to the their makeshift dressing room. Mr. Cohen grabbed Grace on as she passed the bar, “Next time, spend less time daydreaming and more time on dancing!” Grace nodded, she couldn’t afford to get on this devil’s bad side and ruin her opportunity in this new city.

A bell ringed, it was time for her solo number. Rushing back to the restaurant floor in a tight fitting champagne-colored gown, Grace began singing. “ _I could be happy, never be blue...I’d spend a lifetime devoted to you, all of this is true..if you only knew, what your love could do.”_ The show was over thirty minutes later, and after another after hours engagement at Fort Frolic, the cast were finally able to retire to their rooms in Mercury Suites. After a successful (and exhausting week), the contract ended on November 11th.

Mr. Tribble and his revue, surrounded by luggage, hugged Grace before they all boarded the train leaving Rapture for the surface. “We had a great time here, but we’re heading back stateside. Come back when you’ve had enough of this... place,” Mr. Tribble looked around the beautiful underwater metropolis nervously. “Oh I’ll miss you and the girls. Here, when you get back, could you mail these letters to mama back in St. Louis?” Grace waved as the Atlantic Express pulled away before heading towards Fort Frolic’s cocktail lounge.  



	5. Star of Rapture's stages

**_June 2nd, 1948_ **

Mr. Cohen wrote up the three-month contract and made the arrangements for Grace to appear in the floorshow at Fleet Hall. She had spent the last year studying voice and music at the Rapture Musical Conservatory, thanks to Cohen’s charitable efforts. In order to remain at the illustrious conservatory, she forced to perform nightly at Cohen’s nightclub. Despite performing before the city’s wealthiest residents, Grace was overwhelmed with the his overbearing demands of her. He made sure she always closed with the song,  _ My Fate is in your Hands _ .

No longer a student, Grace went looking for her own place. She couldn’t afford to return to Mercury Suites, despite most of the more prominent entertainers having residences there. Mr. Cohen promised to set her up in a luxurious apartment, if she danced at his strange nightly drunken parties held back at his own apartments. Grace declined, she recalled her last time, forced to dance half nude before salivating older wealthy men, who tried to pull off what little she had on. She had heard from other girls that Cohen often forced them to do much worse. That sort of thing was not what Grace had come down to Rapture for.

Grace held onto her bags tightly as she walked into the Skid Row tenement building. Just as filthy as the buildings back in Missouri she grew up in, exhausted shabbily dressed residents coming in and out of the building, heading for another long shift in the nearby dingy buildings and factories. “Are you the Miss Holloway who telephoned earlier about a vacant room?” Grace approached the woman standing outside a small office, “Yes, here I’ve got my deposit right h..” The woman snatched it out her hand, “Next floor, #2 is available...here are the keys. Make sure to have the rent ready in hand on the first of every month.”

It was just one large room, dust flying everywhere as she opened the door. Grace spent the day scrubbing the filthy wooden floors and dust covered windows, laying cardboard over holes in the wood before rolling out the cheap rugs she bought from the market. A piano and phonograph in the corner to rehearse, a sofa-bed, few photographs adorning the walls and her clothes locked in a large wardrobe (the key hidden under one of the rugs). 

Every morning, her old records wailed throughout the tenement as she ate breakfast and soaked her tired body in the cracked porcelain tub she got on a discount at the Pauper’s Market. Often she found the no-good maintenance man banging at her door. Grace, wrapped in one her robes peered through the cracked door, “What’s the trouble with you!” The dusty man barged into her apartment, his dripping mop staining her rugs.  “Hey what’s the matter with you raisin’ all that noise here!” She felt her Missouri accent making an appearance, “I don’t care who you is! I don’t care if you’re the landlord, you’ve got no business bargin’ in here! Don’t I pay my rent.” Before he could answer, the man found himself being beaten by one her shoes as he crawled out into the hall.

In the afternoons, from her window on the Atlantic Express heading for High Street, Grace watched dust and cinders raining from the upper levels onto the filthy overcrowded neighborhood. Rapture’s population was steadily growing, and more sections of the city were being opened early every month. However the common workers and residents of the Drop saw little of the city expansion. Her trips up to High Street for nightly engagements were like travelling between different worlds. Her opening engagement at Fleet Hall went over successfully with Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters & Adelaide Hall songs and the musical scores from the film  _ New Orleans _ , which had been shown across the city the year before. Her burgundy satin gown, cheaply down by a seamstress who happened to live a few doors down, rivaled those seen at the shops along High Street. Her pretty brown skin and hair slicked back like Josephine Baker, caught the gleam of the spotlights. “ _ I don’t know why..there’s no sun up in the sky..stormy weather. Since my man and I ain’t together, keeps rainin’ all the time… _ ” As a featured act the Footlight Theater, Fleet Hall and the Seahorse nightclub she belted out Jazz and Pop hits which usually followed by her dancing into a frenzy. On weekends, she headlined at the Limbo Room, a small intimate nightclub that served Pauper’s Drop where sang Spirituals and slow Blues to the workers to the sound of the small band.

 

**_September 15th, 1950_ **

During one of her usual nightly performances, “ _ I wished on the moon, for something I never knew. Wished on the moon, for more than I ever knew...a sweeter rose, a softer sky on April days that would not dance away… _ ” Grace noticed a handsome man staring at her from across the room. She hadn’t recalled seeing him in the Drop before. ‘ _ Perhaps he was another recent arrival _ ’ she thought. As she made her way up the steps towards the dressing room in-between her set, the man appeared out the shadows carrying half-wilted flowers in his sweaty hands. “For you, Miss Holloway!” Grace carefully took the flowers and lead the nervous man into her room. 

Grace and James were inseparable since that night, especially as he couldn’t get enough of her singing and the message many of her songs held, about the way things were for the common people of Rapture. He was even thrilled to accompany her during her first recording sessions with Steinkamp Recordings. Her music hit the top of Rapture musical charts and sold very well around the record stores. Her occasional afternoon appearances on Radio-Rapture were among the most anticipated in Pauper’s Drop. The workers would rush towards their radios to hear her perform Blues that touched the hearts of the common man. Many of the aristocrats who paraded up and down High Street couldn’t relate to the Blues, and many time Cohen wanted that type of music removed from the air. But with her overwhelming popularity, Ryan allowed her to remain. Grace Holloway’s records sold extremely well, it would’ve been unwise to censor her…’ _ As long as she doesn’t get out of hand _ ’ Ryan thought.

 

**_February 14th, 1951_ **

Quietly married, the couple settled in together at their little Skid Row tenement. Writing home about her new romance, her family was thrilled at hearing her finding love and success abroad. Grace still hadn’t told them much about, and why she couldn’t travel to visit. ‘ _ Oh mama, I’ve got so many contracts from different places, that I’ve been so busy. I’ll try again within a few months. The weather here is very unpredictable… _ ’ Grace wasn’t sure how to tell her mother about the recent decree issued by Ryan banning travel in and out of Rapture. Her passport had expired, and even if she was allowed to leave, she didn’t recall seeing any American consulates in Reykjavik. 

Soon, it was practically impossible to send or receive letters outside the city. Every now and then, Frank Fontaine offered to help her smuggle letters in and out of Rapture..for a small fee of course. Now a successful businessman (i.e. con artist), Grace recalled running into him back in New York. A filthy stagehand for the vaudeville theatres around the Bronx and even when he ran the Clanger Bar...although she recalled he was using a different name then. Grace herself lied a few times in order to dance in some of the cabarets. She recalled seeing his scheming face back in 1948 at her solo debut at Fleet Hall. The grimey boy had become a well dressed man, who could afford his own private box and intermingling with the city’s Crème de la crème. With a man like Fontaine among those in power, Grace could sense the direction Rapture was heading, and it wasn’t going to end well at all. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rapture's Nightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414902) by [Arletiz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arletiz/pseuds/Arletiz)




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